Remnants of the Past

The Bates Adventure

The Bates Adventure

I could feel the wetness of the pillow saturated with my sweat and tears. The liquid goo lay sticky against my neck and smelled of fear. My sudden paralysis rendered me immobile. Just as I was unable to wipe the sweat from my brow, I also found myself incapable of stopping the self-urination and defecation occurring in the lower regions of my body. I had somehow entered a whole new realm of awareness. My sense of touch and smell were heightened. My nerve endings felt raw as they tingled with a constant vibration. My mind seemed to be intact, as I repeatedly fought to explore the data of a lifetime buried in its caverns. My recall for dates and faces seemed true. My vision seemed untrustworthy. The scenes that played in front of me were vivid and terrorizing. My mind told me that they were an illusion, but the horror contained within them caused my heart to race. I wanted desperately to change the channel but was trapped inside of myself, unable to move.

"Where was I?" the question danced in my mind, floating like a cloud just out of reach. I battled to remember how I came to be in this predicament. I used my senses to draw the memory forward. It was neither too hot nor too cold with the temperature well regulated. It was soft and cushiony beneath me like a bed. And I believed there to be a light blanket on top of me. I couldn't actually see my surroundings, because the visions were blocking the view. It was as if I were viewing events and images through three-dimensional goggles. The images were unlike anything I had ever experienced. There were no tame roller coaster rides or mountain skiing trips. It was the ghastly movie of my death. The plot changed with each replaying, but the outcome was just as horrendous.

When I closed my mind's eye to the pictures, I flashed on the thought of a motel. It didn't explain the why, but I was starting to remember the how. I had been traveling home to visit my parents in San Diego, California. After having worked all day, the drive from Arizona had proved to be too much. Fatigue had sent me searching for a motel, which I assumed was my current location. I remembered checking in for the night. The motel manager had been overly courteous, but I thought nothing of it. It was late and I was eager for the promised night of rest the motel sign advertised.

The manager was tall and slender with dark hair. He stooped as he walked, angling his body like an antelope in movement. He kept repeating," Please be sure to enjoy your time of rest and all of the adventures our fine motel has to offer." I assured him that I was looking for only the rest portion of the package.
His reply now seemed quite eerie. "Well you just never know what you'll enjoy at the Bates Motel," he said with a toothy grin.

The visions accosted me again with a renewed energy. It was evident that someone wanted my focus to remain on the scheduled program of violence. It was all in an effort to keep me from discovering the reason for this forced and hellish nightmare.

In my current illusion, I was now being operated on while awake. I could feel the surgeon's hands in my abdomen. They were warm and disturbing. Steam from my body cavity rose to greet the cold air of the operating room. The masked man with the scalpel thumped my liver over and over again. I could pinpoint the location of the pain, but the ache seemed distant. He moved slowly down to my gallbladder. It was as if I were aware of every cell and every organ my body. It was an overload of stimulation to be simultaneously bombarded by the body's pain receptors. He strummed the gallbladder ducts like a guitar. He flicked my pancreas like a drum. Shivers of pain shot through me causing me to scream out. I had no way of knowing if the scream was genuine. I longed to escape the surgeon and his intrusive exploration. I could see my appendix, all pink and pretty, before he moved to touch it. He grasped it firmly, pulling it towards him roughly. I could hear the whooshing sound of a vacuum suck the appendage through a tube, like a straw in a can of soda pop. It was gone just as quickly as I'd seen it, leaving me with a sense of loss and emptiness. I pleaded for him to stop as he pulled on other organs. He laid my bowel on my chest. I could feel the pulsating warmth as the process of peristalsis occurred. I was in the midst of a terrifying anatomy class with me as the cadaver. The insane surgeon was dissecting me piece by piece. I somehow had become the frog that so many teenage kids had empathized.

Each chamber of my heart came into focus. I could see and feel the blood pumping. The muscle quivered as it pulsed. I tried to count the beats, but they were fast and furious. Surely, the muscle would soon fatigue from the workload. I tried to remain calm, wanting to put no further stress on my heart. I thought of how bizarre it would be to suffer a severe heart attack in a strange motel at the ripe age of twenty-six. My thoughts returned to the motel manager, the man dissecting me. I wondered how he explained that no one ever left his motel.

Just as I was about to give up and let this strange phenomenon win, the channel of my visions changed. I was ready to surrender to death. I was suddenly whole again with all of my organs where they belonged. My senses remained on alert. My surgeon was now a seamstress and I had become the pincushion. Slowly and methodically, he poked straight pins into my flesh. He mapped each nerve ending ensuring premium results. Shards of tingling pain shot from my toes to my scalp with each insertion. I mouthed the words of mercy to no avail. I fell into a stupor unable to fight the pain. My television screen went blank momentarily. It returned with a message that flashed brightly.

It read,"Please insert eight more quarters for the next round of adventures at the Bates Motel. We thank you for your patronage. Our interactive vision-ware is courtesy of Bates Technology and his Hall of Horrorscape."



Word count 1109